Exorbitant Prices

There was a saying; When a girl realized she had more than 20 missed calls after waking up, her first reaction would be to boast to others how lucky she was; but when a guy was placed in the same predicament, he would just feel like a goner.

Although he and Qiu Yuan weren't as close as in his previous life, they were definitely friends. In any case, if not for her, Lin Jie would have remained as a bachelor till death in his previous life.

Lin Jie switched to the chat log with Qiu Yuan and left her a message. The content of his message was full of common excuses like, "I fell sick recently… was aching all around… underwent surgery and thus was unable to be online… I missed you a lot and hence decided to come online to see how you were doing… I was touched to see you being so concerned about me…"

In less than two seconds, Qiu Yuan replied to his message.

"You were down with a serious illness? Are you feeling better now?" Her voice sounded rather angry. "I have a friend who just started playing this game, I was hoping you could help me to guide her along, but you conveniently ignored me this whole while. Hpmh!"

Lin Jie let out an embarrassed laugh and made a series of loud coughs intentionally. "I'm sorry, I was really sick."

"Forget it, I don't blame you," replied Qiu Yuan, and asked Lin Jie in a more worried tone, "are you better now?"

"Oh, I'm fine now, fine now. Oh yeah, what is your friend's name? I will get in contact with her soon and mention you've 'ordered' me to guide her in the game. How does that sound? Cough, cough, cough…" Lin Jie coughed even louder.

"Yep, sure. Oh yeah, what were you down with exactly? I have a friend who graduated from med school…"

As the common saying goes, 'To hide a lie, a thousand lies are needed.'

Lin Jie did not like to tell lies. Hence, after pondering for several moments, he came up with a clever response to Qiu Yuan's question. "Oh, I suffered from barbiers…"

There was silence on Qiu Yuan's end. After a while, she screamed angrily at Lin Jie, "SCRAM!"

Lin Jie cut off the line hurriedly. 'Qiu Yuan's friend…' If he was correct, the person should be 'her'.

However, it's not the right time to see her. Lin Jie did not know if he would change their destined interactions if he met 'her' earlier. 'Best to just keep things to fate…' He tore apart the returning scroll and was back to the City of Light.

As soon as he stepped into the city, he attracted tons of stares by the passersby.

"Gosh, a red name!"

"Heck, and he still dared to come back to the city? Does he still want his life?"

"The guards will come to arrest him soon, right? Wtf, I guess he must have killed at least tens of people to get this red name?"

Indeed, a troop of aggressive-looking guards was marching smartly towards him. Having a red name was very dangerous, as one would suffer double punishment if he was killed, or be arrested by the guards immediately once he entered the city. Other than that, the player would be forced to level down by 1 level and be locked up in jail until his evil score was refreshed. The jail sentence only started from the moment the person came online. If one ever thought that they could go offline and take a nap while his character in the game served out the sentence, they were in for a surprise. That would never happen in this game.

Dare to commit murders? Then be prepared to serve out your punishment!

Many passersby looked at Lin Jie, curious to see what would happen next. They led plain and boring lives, and thus definitely enjoyed witnessing exciting occasions.

The guards approached Lin Jie. All of them were at least Elite Paladins of Level 90 and were proficient in at least three different kinds of skill sets.

The captain of the guards stood in front of Lin Jie and bowed respectfully to him. "The City of Light welcomes you, our most respectable Viscount."

Everyone was shocked.

Weren't those guards always high and mighty? Yet they were actually greeting others now? The world was definitely going crazy!

"You are welcome. I think I might have made an offense by entering this city." Lin Jie pointed to his red name, and said apologetically, "I am sorry."

The captain shook his head. "Not every sin is evil."

After that, the guards left.

Lin Jie walked to the auction house by himself, earning envious and awed looks from the onlookers along the way. He intended to sweep the store clean of all available low-level Poison-Antidote Potions and prescriptions. As he had not bought any of the items for this whole week, the entire page of the auction house was filled with prescriptions and ingredients for making the Poison-Antidote Potions. Lin Jie's brows furrowed as he was running out of cash.

Lin Jie put up the fragments of various equipment and skill scrolls he collected so far up for auction. When he saw the shards of the Shield of Courage, he started to ponder if he should sell them first and re-purchase them when he had enough money.

At that moment, the sound of people discussing reached his ears…

"Aish, I had predicted that those potions would become rare, but Elder Brother refused to listen to me."

"What to do? That fellow who created the potion was just too shrewd. He acted as if he still got stock for the potions, and hence the prices of the potions dropped and were purchased in bulk by ordinary players. Now even if we pooled all our money together, it would be difficult for us to find any leftover stock."

The two headhunters from the Ironwall Empire discussed fervently while searching the pages of the auction house for the potions.

"Hi, my friends.' Lin Jie approached them with a smile. "Do you need potions?"

One of the headhunters was named Barcel Beat Roma. He glanced at Lin Jie cautiously and nodded. "Yes, the Slow Restoring Mana Potions. Do you have stock?"

Lin Jie hesitated before saying, "I have, but not a lot. I got them from the last batch. I was offline these few days and thus didn't have time to sell them."

Barcel Beat Roma let out an understanding 'oh'. He turned his eyes, and a thought sprang up in his mind as he broke into light-hearted laughter. "Brother, I shall not hide it from you. This potion's price has decreased significantly."

"Huh?" Lin Jie pretended to be shocked. How could he not understand the headhunters' intention? The cheaper the cost of the original stock, the more profit they would gain from selling the potions.

"Aish, there is no market for the potions now! Look, I have about 100 bottles here that I have been trying so hard to sell." He showed Lin Jie a bundle of potions. "I could not even get 10 silver coins from selling them!"

10 silver coins for 100 bottles of potion, which meant 10 bronze coins for one bottle. Lin Jie nearly burst out laughing.

"Oh forget it, I will just keep my 500 plus bottles of potion for myself then." Lin Jie shook his head in disappointment.

"500 plus bottles?" Barcel Beat Roma's eyes gleamed, and stretched out his hands greedily, "Brother, to be honest, I felt you looked so alike to one of my younger brothers the first time I saw you. Aish, I just can't bear to see my brothers getting sad. How about this. I can buy your stock at the price of 15 silver coins per 100 bottles. You don't need to thank me."

Lin Jie pouted and raised three fingers. "30 silver coins for 100 bottles."

"Whoa, are you a robber?" The other headhunter joined in at that moment. His name was Roma Beat Barcel—the two dudes were definitely soccer fans…

"Now the highest price for 100 bottles of potion is just 28 silver coins, yours is so much expensive…"

Oops, the cat was let out of the bag.

Barcel Beat Roma glared at him and tried to cover up with a smile, "Brother, he's just joking, hahaha."

"Me too." Lin Jie nodded his head.

"Then let's make the deal at 30 silver coins per 100 bottles, you could pass the bottles to…"

"Are you two from the Ironwall Empire?"

Barcel Beat Roma blinked. "Yes, if you are interested in joining us, I can help to make a recommendation for you, but the price… "

"Are you intending to kill a Boss? I believe the Boss which such a big guild is targeting must definitely be very challenging. Is this Boss the one which will reward you with the Guild Base Token?" Lin Jie commented coolly.

The Guild Base Token could allow guilds to choose a village or a piece of land as their residential area in the urban areas. When guilds set up their base areas, it would function as a temporary place to store their supplies. They could also complete guild missions after they set up their base. Hence, there were rich rewards for getting the Guild Base Token.

Since the Ironwall Empire was gathering such a large quantity of potions, they must definitely be aiming to get the Guild Base Token.

"I am not sure about that." Barcel Beat Roma got more careful with his words.

"40 silver coins for 100 bottles of potion. I will sell all of them to you if you are interested." Lin Jie tapped open his trading column and placed all the 500 bottles of potions on it. "Of course, if you refuse to deal with me, I won't mind posting a fake post on the game's official website and reveal that you two had told me the news of Ironwall Empire preparing to attack the Boss."

That was definitely not a fair deal—it's just blatantly using coercion to force a trade.

The two of them stared at each other, gritted their teeth and handed their money over to Lin Jie as they had no other choice.

'Two gold coins earned! Hehe…'

Lin Jie was elated and immediately started clearing the stocks for the Poison-Antidote Potions. Before anyone noticed the appearance of the low-level Poison-Antidote Potions, they were all quietly gone again.

Lin Jie walked to the store manager and requested to view his personal inventory. As he saw the items inside—thousands of ingredients needed for creating the low-level Poison-Antidote Potion, hundreds of prescriptions and 2,000 bottles of Poison-Antidote Potions—he felt deeply satisfied with his accumulation during this period of time.

While he carried his red name, Lin Jie searched for a shop, The House of the Butcher, within the City of Light. It was located at a corner of the city. The only Boss with a red name lived there, and his name was called Gamon.

Gamon was a Level 12 monster with terrible stats. Players normally treated him as the backdrop of the game, but they would kill him whenever they passed by his shop, all for a simple reason- they just could not resist the urge to do so…

While the players were still newbies, it was quite a feat to be able to kill Gamon.

Lin Jie pushed open the door and entered the shop. Gamon was sitting in front of his butcher station reluctantly, balancing his chin in his hands, with a depressed look on his face. "Aye, greetings, friend."

There were a few pieces of fresh meat on the station. Gamon pushed them towards Lin Jie. "Are you in the mood for some fresh elf meat?"

Lin Jie shook his head fervently. "Oh no, I don't eat elves."

Gamon let out a sinister laugh, "Do you think you are a kind man? No, no, no, you can't hide it. The evil in your heart is resurrecting."

Activated!

The reason why Gamon was killed so frequently was mainly that of the things he sold, elf meat, goblin meat, minotaur meat and so on. This fellow was a Bloodthirsty Butcher. Should players enter his shop but refuse to buy any meat, they would be killed. Of course, it was actually hard to determine who would really be killed.

However, should the player carry a red name, the game's hidden plot would be activated!

To meet Gamon while carrying a red name, one of the pre-requisites would be to enter the city with a red name. However, at this stage, no one was able to achieve it.

"Not all sins are evil. For example, the one which I will be committing… right now." Lin Jie said calmly, "Remove your disguise, you shameless dead spirit."

Gamon's original pale red name turned crimson, and his name changed too.

Bloodthirsty Butcher: Level 5 Elite, HP 1200.